We’ve all heard about having eco friendly buildings, however the Waste House at the University of Brighton certainly gives us food for thought when it comes to building houses for the future.
Should there be more eco friendly buildings like the Waste House in Brighton?
Understanding what has been used in its construction and the fact that it is an EPC ‘A’ Rated low energy building I would say why not? Yes, there is a lot we can do with our existing homes. This includes installing solar panels, energy efficient bulbs and boilers. Like all of these schemes there has to be some level of incentives for house builders to make eco friendly buildings such as the Waste House.
How can we develop and build more eco friendly homes?
As has been mentioned above there need to be some incentives for house builders and developers to follow this lead. However, these developers would say its not as simple as putting financial incentives in place to encourage such development. Like any supply line you need to have a solid network in place to deliver these raw materials to building sites at cost and on time. So you need to look at the processes to enable you to get materials like used toothbrushes and old video tapes to site efficiently. So whilst it will no doubt come down to cost, you also need to look at the supply line to get such materials to a given building site.
Do research the viability of constructing eco friendly buildings
However, a good amount research, number crunching and the development of partnerships with new suppliers could help to make this a more credible option for the future. Like a lot of us, house builders and developers are resistant to such radical changes. If they can spend time to do their homework it will at least enable them to create a good cost benefit analysis for them to work from to see how feasible an approach this is. If the costs are still higher then perhaps where the government can look at creating financial incentives to make it a more attractive option.
The Waste House is certainly a great example of showing how we can utilise our rubbish to build ‘A’ rated low energy buildings.
